Abstract

Authoritarian Attitudes in Social and Economic Development: The Japanese Experience Until the Meiji Reform Period

It is a commonly recognized fact that factors responsible for economic development in developing countries are of non-economic nature as well. A complexity of traditional (authoritarian) norms and values, and irrational attitudes arising out of them are regarded as main obstacles to economic development. Students and planners of economic development increasingly lay stress on socio-cultural factors influencing development process in a developing economy. Interesting is, in this regard, Japan’s experience in her socio-economic development: she is the only non-western country that has been successful in synthetizing traditional authoritarian and western rational norms and values. Just seeing to this fact, Japan’s experience used to be taken as a model for economic development in developing countries. It is, however, clear that Japan’s experience as to the whole development process cannot be transferred to others, but some institutional and motivational aspects are certainly worth while being taken into consideration concerning their transferability. First it is in this paper cleared that the japanese economy is still largely characterized by traditional authoritarian norms and values. This is also the reason why the japanese economy could achieve such a rapid and harmonious development process. Second, it is of great value, to elaborate the process, in which these authoritarian norms and values had been formed and inculcated the individual spirit in social and economic life of Japan. It is the pre-Meiji (Tokugawa)-period that mainly contributed to this process. As usual, the Meiji-Reform in the japanese development process is overemphasized. This paper makes it clear that the Tokugawa- periode as preparation stage for the Meiji socio-economic development has no less importance than the Meiji-Reform. Judging from Japan’s experience, it is to be accentuated that traditional authoritarian norms and values are not necessarily obstacles to economic development and should be placed aside, as it mostly happens in developing countries.